Bob Heleringer

Robert Leo "Bob" Heleringer
Kentucky State Representative for District 33 (suburban Jefferson County)
In office January 1, 1980 – December 31, 2002
Preceded by	Bob Benson
Born	May 14, 1951 Louisville, Kentucky
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Cynthia Carby Heleringer (married 1980)
Children	Sarah H. Reinhart Ann R. Hughes Tommy Heleringer Philip Heleringer Parents: Robert C. and Mary Lou O'Donnell Heleringer
Residence	Louisville, Kentucky
Alma mater	Our Lady of Lourdes School Trinity High School (Louisville) Xavier University University of Louisville School of Law
Occupation	Attorney Horse breeder
Religion	Roman Catholic

Robert Leo Heleringer, known as Bob Heleringer (born May 14, 1951, in Louisville, Kentucky), is a Republican attorney and figure in the horse breeding industry who from 1980 to 2002 held the District 33 state representative position, based in suburban Jefferson County.

Background

Heleringer (pronounced HELL RINGER) is the oldest of six children of Robert C. Heleringer (1926-2005) and the former Mary Lou O'Donnell (1927-2004). Robert C. Heleringer, also known as Bob Heleringer, and his father, A. M. Heleringer (1898-1964), founded and operated for a half century Heleringer's Furniture Company in Louisville. Heleringer attended Our Lady of Lourdes School in Louisville, where he was taught by the Roman Catholic Ursuline Nuns of the Immaculate Conception and acquired a keen interest in U.S. history. He graduated as an eighth grader from Our Lady of Lourdes in 1965 and then Trinity High Schoolin Louisville in 1969. He worked in the family furniture store during high school. The Heleringers had first lived on the South End of Louisville near Churchill Downs but subsequently moved to a larger residence at St. Matthews, a suburb on the East End of Louisville.

Heleringer was born in the week between the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness races. His maternal grandfather from whom he acquired his middle name, Leo O'Donnell (1896-1993), was a thoroughbred trainer who co-founded the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association. Heleringer's mother and his siblings raced horses in the 1990's and early 2000's and acquired a winner in the horse, "Put Me In." Heleringer worked as a parimutuel betting and racing official at various locations while he attended the Roman Catholic Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, from which he graduated in 1973. He then enrolled at the University of Louisville School of Law, at which he was the editor of the student newspaper. He graduated in 1976 and immediately launched his law practice. In 2000, he was named an "Honored Alumnus" by his law school.

When he was campaigning in 1979 for the legislature in the same election in which Republican Louie B. Nunn unsuccessfully sought to return to the governorship, Heleringer met Cynthia "Cindy" Carby, a young woman whom he signed up to vote. Despite some reservation from her father, the couple married the next year and had four children in eight years: Sarah (1981), Ann (1982), Tommy (1984), and Philip (1989). Heleringer told his bride that while they might not become wealthy, life would never be dull. With their children all grown, the Heleringers refurbished his boyhood home in St. Matthews, where they reside. They also spend part of the year in Vermont.

Political life

In his twenties, Heleringer campaigned for fellow Republicans Gene Snyder, a U.S. Representative for Kentucky's 4th congressional district, and Jon Ackerson, a state senator and later state representative for Jefferson County who successfully recommended Heleringer for the position as "administrative assistant" to the then eight-member Republican Senate Caucus, long before the Republicans obtained the majority in the state Senate in 2000. In the 1979 state election, Heleringer in a vigorous campaign unseated the Democratic Representative Bob Benson. Heleringer ran as a staunch opponent of abortion, which had been legalized in all states six years earlier by the since overturned United States Supreme Court. Unlike most opponents of abortion, Heleringer also opposed capital punishment: "I think it's wrong to take a life regardless of what that person has done." He compared lethal injection to "sanitizing" legal executions.

As a legislator, Heleringer was the vice-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, from which berth he became known for criticism of excessive state spending on contracts. He has worked for organizations which represent disabled persons as well as the horse industry. In 1985, Representative Heleringer was the unsuccessful Republican nominee for mayor of Louisville; he lost to the Democrat Jerry Abramson, who was subsequently the first Louisville Metro Mayor. In 2007, Heleringer was the unsuccessful candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky. on an intra-party ticket headed by Steve Nunn of Barren County, the son of former Governor Louie B. Nunn. Steve Nunn, who had entered the legislature at the same time as Heleringer, lost the gubernatorial nomination to U.S. Representative Ernie Fletcher, a physician who then became the first Republican to win the Kentucky governorship since Louie B. Nunn in 1967. Steve Nunn is now serving a life sentence for the murder of a former fiancée.

In 2008, Heleringer ran unsuccessfully for the Kentucky State Senate.

In 2015, Heleringer finished second among twenty-one candidates for the seat on the state 30th District Court for Jefferson Countty vacated by the retiring Judge Michele Stengel. With 19,432 votes (11.6 percent), Heleringer lost to Democrat Todd Hollenbach of Louisville, the former two-term state treasurer who led the field with 32,340 (19.2 percent). Kentucky has no runoff elections in such situations; so pluralit] prevails.

Heleringer is an instructor at the Equine Industry Studies program at the University of Louisville. As there was no textbook for the original course, Heleringer began to prepare a book. After thirteen years, he completed Equine Regulatory Law, which also encompasses the history of the horse racing industry. He also teaches equine studies at the women's school,[Midway University] in Midway, Kentucky. In December 2015, Heleringer resigned as the executive director of the Kentucky Equine Education Project, an advocacy group established in 2004. KEEP, as it is known, announced a future statewide focus, rather than concentration on Louisville, Lexington, and the capital city of Frankfort, and the dropping of its former lobbying activities on behalf of casino gambling.

Advocate of LGBTQ

Heleringer writes occasional columns, mostly political, for The Louisville Courier-Journal. In 2023, in one of his opinion columns, Heleringer attacked conservatives in the Kentucky state legislature for introducing a plethora of bills intended to stop the LGBTQ agenda. Heleringer said that he wished he "could blame both political parties for this cataclysm, but I cannot. Every ani-gay/trans bill this session was introduced by a Republican. ...

Transgender children are the primary targets of the vendetta: what pronouns can be used to describe them in our public schools, ... what medical care they can obtain, what psychological services they can have, what bathrooms the kids can use in a public school among other degradations. ...

Gay adults have been singled out for special humiliation by having to contend with a bill that addresses one of the commonwealth’s most critical problems: who can attend drag queen shows and where they can be performed; an artistic expression (dance) that threatens absolutely no one."